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An evaluation of the School Assistance and Intervention Team process in California public schools: lessons learned and indications for policy change

AN EVALUATION OF THE SCHOOL ASSISTANCE AND INTERVENTION TEAM PROCESS IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: LESSONS LEARNED AND INDICATIONS FOR POLICY CHANGE
by
Mark Louis Van Horn
__________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
December 2012
Copyright 2012 Mark Louis Van Horn

In 1999, California was among the first schools in the nation to initiate an accountability model for public education using a method for system measurement of academic improvement constructed on the bedrock of standards-based education. The State also included a new twist… sanctions. Schools that failed to make expected progress, as measured annually through the California Department of Education’s Academic Performance Index, were held accountable to a preconceived set of severe consequences. This accountability model, known as the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) (Education Code, Sections 52053-52055.52) preceded the No Child Left Behind Act by two years. To the present day, California remains one of a handful of states with dual-accountability systems, one state and one federal. ❧ Within two years of the inception of the Public Schools Accountability Act, disparate gaps in achievement became apparent among California’s schools. In accordance with the inherent foresight, which policymakers had earlier written into the PSAA legislation, interventions in the form of grants to schools were offered. Schools voluntarily applied for either one or both of the grants – the High Priority/Underperforming Schools Grant and/or the Immediate Intervention-Underperforming Schools Program. Acceptance of these funds was explicitly linked to compliance with State sanctions should the school fail to make expected improvement based upon the growth criteria of the Academic Performance Index. ❧ The intent of this study set out to present evidence sustaining the argument that, while State sanctions did bring about a small measure of improvement on the Academic Performance Index, the sanctions also resulted in achievement beyond what would be expected from similarly ranked public schools. The methodology employed was a matched pre post study incorporating measures from the State’s Academic Performance Index scores, the federal Adequate Yearly Progress performance band percentages (both English Language Arts and Mathematics) and the mean scaled-scores for Science. The methodology included comparison schools for each of the two SAIT treatment cohorts (totaling 99 schools each for both treatment and non-treatment). The comparison schools were selected from California’s Similar School’s index, which ranks each school in California with 100 comparable schools based primarily upon analogous demographics.

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AN EVALUATION OF THE SCHOOL ASSISTANCE AND INTERVENTION TEAM PROCESS IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: LESSONS LEARNED AND INDICATIONS FOR POLICY CHANGE
by
Mark Louis Van Horn
__________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
December 2012
Copyright 2012 Mark Louis Van Horn